All Blacks captain Richie McCaw to pursue chopper pilot career after rugby retirement

All Blacks captain Richie McCaw has announced his retirement from rugby, saying the World Cup win was a "pretty satisfying" final memory.

The announcement comes just a day after the sudden death of All Black great Jonah Lomu, which prompted a flood of international tributes from sport stars, politicians, and celebrities.

McCaw paid tribute to Lomu before making the announcement, sending his condolences to his wife and family.

"When I was thinking about my experience with Jonah, when I first became an All Black he was in the team and to play alongside a guy that you watched as a young fella was pretty amazing," he said.

He went on to say he regretted the timing but the reality was he would be "hanging up his boots" and his last game would remain the World Cup final.

"I guess I made no secret at the start of this year that this day was going to be probable, that this year would be my last, but deep down I suppose I didn't want to shut the door totally because, I was, for probably two reasons, but I didn't want to make it final because I was worried that the emotion might get to me in a World Cup year, you know I might start thinking about the last this, the last that and maybe whether I did all the things that I needed to do to play my best.

"But that door, even if it was creaked open a little bit, it didn't feel final till perhaps right now so that was one thing and I knew with the World Cup there's no inbetweens coming home, you're either going to be extremely happy or extremely disappointed and had it gone the way of us getting beaten I wanted to make sure I did it right as the All Black captain that I fronted as you would expect and not sort of already had my foot out the door.